"Around Town: Ghost Walk, pub-crawl, Wine Trail"

Want to get spooked? Check out Western New York's haunted spots before the holiday!

The Spectrum
The Buffalo Central Terminal used to be a bustling
hub for passenger trains - today, it may be home to
paranormal activity. Courtesy of Flickr User Joseph A

If you’ve gotten a chance to hop on the Metro Rail and head downtown, then you may have noticed Buffalo is old. It’s really old.

And that means a lot of people have died here.

Is that a bit morbid?

Either way, it makes for a ton of cool ghost walks.

With Halloween just two Fridays away (thank the holiday Gods for it being a Friday), getting in the spirit with a ghost tour will introduce you to Buffalo’s dead side. From the suburbs to the city to the country, Western New York has a lot of spooky stuff to choose from.

For the History Buff

On Friday, Oct. 17, you can take the Ghost Walk: The Supernatural Roycroft! or Ghost Walk: Allentown! with Mason Winfield’s Haunted History Ghost Walks.

Saturday night, Oct. 18, is a haunted pub-crawl in East Aurora, a Haunted Ghost Walk in East Aurora and a Canalside Ghost Walk.

Mason Winfield has written 10 books on Upstate New York’s supernatural and paranormal happenings combining the “rich mine of upstate lore, legend and experience,” according to his website.

All the walks meet at 7 p.m. at locations near the walk (check Mason Winfield’s website for more details) and the pub crawl meets at 6:30 p.m. It’s $20 “per head” for the pub crawl, but does not include alcoholic drinks. Other tours are $15.

Paranormal Walks in Hamburg will take you through the spooky side of the village of Hamburg. The tour costs $10 per person and meets at 7 p.m. at Main Street Ice Cream.

For the Film Lover

The Screening Room in Amherst will screen “Young Frankenstein” and “Phantom of the Paradise” Friday night for $6 per film. On Saturday night, you can catch “Young Frankenstein” and “Don’t Look in the Basement” for $6 and $5, respectively. The films are show consecutively beginning at 7 p.m., but be sure to get there much earlier so you have time to enjoy the dinner, drink and snack offerings in the dinner theater and to pick out your table.

For the Adrenaline Junkie

For something a little more hands-on, Beyond Ghosts LLC and the Greater WNY Paranormal Society are offering a Ghost Hunt at Buffalo Central Terminal for $40. From 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., you will use “paranormal and spirit communication equipment” to try to capture paranormal activity. Attendees will be broken off into small groups to explore and investigate areas of the train station throughout the night.

Central Terminal is a towering art deco masterpiece that was put into use June 22, 1929. By 1955, however, New York Central Railroad put Central Terminal on the market and in October 1979, the final passenger train left the station. Since 1979, attempts have been made to revitalize the iconic train station.

If you’re used to having Ghost Adventures marathons with your friends, then try a real life ghost hunt. Imagine all the ghostly goings-on an old train station might have.

For the Wine Lover

Although this activity isn’t exactly paranormal, it certainly sounds fun: The Niagara Wine Trail is offering a “Hallowine” Murder Mystery: The Madd Hatter Murder on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The tour is $30 per person and includes a tasting of three wines at the 13 participating wineries and a commemorative wine glass. The tour does not include transportation – it is up to you to go from winery to winery, solving the mystery of who killed milliner Millie Nerton. Brush up on the mystery on the Niagara Wine Trail website, put your detective hat on and get ready to fill up your cup with mystery – and wine!